The One Where The Guy Answers A Question

Is is weird to be a male working at GirlSense?

A List of Reasons I am a Male Involved with GirlSense and NonSense Magazine:

When Taylor Swift was interviewed as one of Barbara Walters’ Most Fascinating People of 2014, and said when men write songs about ex-lovers they’re brave and when women write songs about ex-lovers they’re crazy, I clapped.

When I buy a novel about how technology turns teenagers into sexual deviants, I am told by the author that males want sex because they are perpetually aroused, and females want sex because they want to please the males in their lives.

When I realized the aforementioned novel had been turned into a Jason Reitman film, I also realized that a 30-something male graduate of film school should not be the most popular outlet for dissecting the psychological mindset of teenage females.

When I coached high school speech and debate, a student did a persuasive speech on media releases of 911 calls. In the semifinals round of the state tournament, a judge wrote on his ballot, “You were overdramatic.” The male competitor who cried during his presentation did not receive the same criticism.

When I do my daily reading of pop culture news, I am informed that Aaron Sorkin believes there aren’t as many interesting roles for women in television.

#WWCCSAT (What would CJ Cregg say about that?) Nothing, because her dialogue is written by Aaron Sorkin.

Most likely, the artists featured in GirlSense and NonSense would catch the inconsistent uses of present and past tenses in this list.

A List of Easily Accessible, Widely Read Outlets for Young Female Artists:

In my Theories of Communication seminar last year, I ran a post-colonial critique on the student who believes he enlightened the Japanese when he taught English “in their homeland.” I’m met with applause*

*By applause, I mean a look of fascination and impression from the professor. The other students were unaware of what was going on, having focused their time on pretending to do the week’s assigned readings.

We have no problem calling the troops to arms over the slightest scent of entitlement of racial knowledge (which smells like cinnamon pine cones.), yet we readily accept that the people who know best about young female voices are people who are decidedly not young females. I readily admit that I know nothing about the psyche of a teenage girl, but I’m not going to ask an author whose work includes titles like The Average American Male (please refer to List 1, #3). I’m also not going to ask self-claimed expert of the American female, Chuck Klosterman, who is a similar 30-something douchewaffle with a knack for catchy titles of loose philosophizing that should actually be called Sex, Drugs and Contradictions.

(I apologize for the outdated reference, but I’m finally getting around to reading for fun again, which means my cultural cues are taken from the mid-2000s.)

Sure, I watch The View every day and can do a spot-on Whoopi Goldberg, but I don’t think it should be the cultural highpoint of women’s platforms. Sure, there are potential suitors who appreciate the service this magazine provides, but there are too many who don’t. For a community who experiences daily cultural oppression for a crucial part of their identity, this baffles me.

Technological determinism or not, fifth-wave feminism or otherwise, sociocultural progression requires constant examination of every demographic, every mind, every voice. For me, the best way to understand something, or more importantly, someone, is to investigate who they are and learn.

Simply put, the best way to understand the young female voice is to listen to the young female voice. But how can we do that if there is no platform for these girls to be heard?

I am involved with GirlSense and NonSense because it is that platform. So readers, writers, artists, or whatever you would like to call yourselves:

Educate me, because your voice matters.

Sincerely,

Joshua M. Watkins
Digital Content Strategist
GS&NS Magazine

GS&NS Magazine encourages young female artists to submit their work for publication. Accepting submissions now for the March Issue. Details here.

We're hiring! Are you a social media wizard? Applications accepted until January 7th, 2015. Details here.